[seanmcelroy]

Cross-compatibility makes a lot of sense of they perceive a lot of future risk to their value proposition that one technology or product will sell another one. If they don't believe Windows Server will be a compelling enough technology to push adoption of .NET, then why risk the decade of development on it by tying it around the neck of IIS? I see it as an admission that the various product offerings need to float on their own merits, not just because 'its the option that runs on Windows'. There's enough alternatives now to make that kind of assumption a relic of the '90s and 00's.

[keithwarren]

+1 Best answer so far.

They are just making a bet that tight coupling to a singular platform does not give them the agility they want for the future. This may also be a trial balloon. If this goes well you may see other things in the Microsoft stack make similar changes.

[laumars]

Except that this isn't any different from the other times they supported other platforms when they didn't hold a monopoly in that specific area. This isn't a new strategy / trial balloon; this is a tried and tested technique for gaining market dominance (and it's not just Microsoft who play this game; most of the tech giants do - even Google).

[rbanffy]

Yes, but in this case, they are embracing and extending - and open sourcing - their own platform, ASP.NET. We are still missing something.

They may attract some Java developers, but I don't think it has much appeal outside their own ecosystem.

[laumars]

Just because they haven't yet reached the 'extinguish' stage of their strategy (and possibly never will), it doesn't mean that isn't the intended outcome. And going by their past behaviour; history would suggest that is their eventual end goal.

As for whether ASP.NET on Linux will ever attract many new developers; I must admit that I'm inclined to agree with you.

[_random_]

How can you monopolize something that runs on Linux and is forkable?

[laumars]

Quite easily, actually. If the majority of Mono / .NET developers are in house MS developers, then Microsoft still have all practical control over the project (just because something is open source, it doesn't mean people will develop for it nor fork it). Plus Mono not all of .NET is open source; such as the DRM extensions for Silverlight (there aren't even closed binary Mono libraries for that).

But that wasn't my point, I was commenting about how Microsoft support other platforms and standards to gain a foothold in that specific market; then introduce incompatibilities to lock people into their technology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish). It's a well used strategy (and not just by MS). In fact, I almost sympathise with it's usage as it makes a lot of business sense - even if it does totally suck from a user perspective.

Also, why down vote me; then ask the question? Doesn't that seem a somewhat backwards approach to discussion and peer moderation?

[icantthinkofone]

80% and more of the internet does not run Microsoft server products or their technologies.